Tag Archive: action alert

It has become clear that the ODRC is messing with Sean’s ability to communicate. This is very likely a retaliatory attempt to obstruct his ability to sue their pants off. Below find a message from him about the phone restriction. Supporters have been calling since Sunday about the Jpay email restriction. It seems both originated with Cheif Inspector Gary Croft.

We were unable to reach Gary Croft today, but hope to try again tomorrow. Sean encourages other supporters to also call Croft and demand that he return Sean’s access to these forms of communication. This morning Sean started dumping his meals down the toilet, on an unofficial hunger strike (since official hunger strikers who refuse meals are often punished).

We just wanted to inform people that sometime in May Debbie (Sims) Africa will be going before The Pa Parole Board for what will be her now 7th parole hearing since 2008 . We are putting together a parole sample sheet and are asking that people sign it or write their own letter of parole in support of Debbie for her upcoming hearing people can mail Their letters of support for Debbie’s Parole to The Move Organization p.o.box 19709 Philadelphia pa 19143. Time is short so we need as many letters as possible

Ona Move

Please take a moment to write a letter in support of parole for Debbie prior to her next hearing scheduled for in or after May 2014. Letters can be sent to The Move Organization at P.O. Box 19709, Philadelphia, PA 19143. Please make sure your letter arrives by May 1st.

I’m Michael and yes, I’m locked down in one of Amerika’s many prisons in the state of Alabama. But that does not excuse me from the struggle for a better world. And I believe that anarchism is the best alternative to what exists now. I believe this without reservations. Anarchism is not about building state power, but rather, destroying the state and building new humyn relationships based on mutual aid and cooperation and freedom.

I’m not a public speaker, but a warrior in the struggle to build that new humyn relationship, mutual aid, cooperation, and freedom from all coercive power, rather than a soldier, because a soldier is someone who is ordered about without thinking for him/herself in a hierarchical structure. A tool of a ruling power.

Right now there is a struggle going on in Alabama’s prisons demanding a change in the horrendous, unsanitary, and inhumane conditions in the prisons. In the prison I’m at, Holman, birds fly around the kitchen dropping bird shit on prisoners and/or their food, industrial light fixtures are falling from the ceiling injuring at least one prisoner seriously, during the winter months the showers are cold, the dorms are also cold in the winter, inadequate medical care, inadequate outdoors exercise time, inadequate nutrition, harassment of family members during visiting hours, and a host of other serious problems too numerous to list (see Justice or Just Business for more). But most of all, we are fighting and struggling for our dignity and humanity. (more…)

On December 23, 2013, ICE agents raided the home of Hugo Leonel. Despite pleas from his children to ICE agents, Hugo Leonel was taken into custody and is currently being held at Stewart Detention Center.

In early 2013, Hugo Leonel was charged with a DWI. Being his first offense, Hugo Leonel was released under bond. In compliance with his sentence, he completed community service hours and an alcohol treatment program. So why is he detained?

HUGO LEONEL IS SET TO BE DEPORTED ON TUESDAY NIGHT!

Help get Hugo Leonel released and his deportation stopped by making a phone call and signing the petition!

TAKE ACTION – MAKE A CALL:

Call Atlanta ICE @ (404) 893-1210Call DC ICE @ (202) 732-3000 or (202) 732-3100
Sample Script: “Hi, I am calling to ask for the release of Hugo Leonel Perez (A# 077-665-965) from Stewart Detention Center. Hugo Leonel has been living in the U.S. for 8 years. He came from Guatemala to reunite with his family. His U.S. citizen son, Rhodinson, needs him home. Please don’t separate Rhodinson from his dad! Release Hugo Leonel now!”

On Jan. 15, 2014, approximately 25 prisoners in Administrative Detention at Menard Correctional Center went on hunger strike. The hunger strikers have been told the prison administration is working on obtaining a preliminary injunction to force feed them. They expect to continue the hunger strike even if they are force fed. “We need as much outside support as possible,” the prisoners say. Please call or email: Gov. Pat Quinn, Warden Rick Harrington, Illinois Department of Corrections Director Salvador Godinez.

The following information is drawn from letters received from prisoners in Administrative Detention at Menard Correctional Center in Menard, Illinois, and compiled by attorney Alice Lynd.

Jan. 21, 2014 – On Jan. 15, 2014, approximately 25 prisoners in Administrative Detention at Menard Correctional Center went on hunger strike. Officers shook down their cells and took any food they found. The hunger strikers were sent to see medical staff and charged $5 for medical treatment.

On the way back from seeing medical staff, one prisoner (said to be Armando Valazquez) was pushed onto the stairs while in handcuffs by two officers. Those officers then kicked and stomped on his back, picked him up and then slammed his face into the plexiglass window on a door. One officer was sent home early that day. Prisoner Velazquez was moved to the Health Care Unit and the prisoners have not seen him since.

The hunger strikers have been told the prison administration is working on obtaining a preliminary injunction to force feed them. They expect to continue the hunger strike even if they are force fed.

“We need as much outside support as possible,” the prisoners say. (more…)

Aramark, the private company that won the contract for food at Westville Correctional Facility (a prison in northern Indiana), has enacted drastic cut-backs over the past several months. As a result, hot lunch trays have been replaced with cold, nutritionally deficient sack lunches. One prisoner reports dropping from 215 to 150 pounds during his stint in Westville. Prisoners began refusing these humiliating lunches in collective protest on January 13th, and now their struggle is expanding.

Westville’s Control Unit is divided into four pods, each containing four sections. As the collective protest spreads, it’s expected to involve majorities in all eight sections of A and B pods before the end of the week. Prisoners report that many within the Control Unit are setting aside petty differences in order to support each other and share food.

In response to the start of the protest and the mass call-in day on 1/14, prison bureaucrats are foisting responsibility for the malnourishing lunches onto Aramark. However, we know that the two are acting in collusion; the DOC could act to force the contractor to bring back hot lunches. Prisoners have been inspired by the massive response to the call-in day from around the United States. They are determined to continue until they win.

Now is the time to multiply solidarity actions and pressure against the Indiana DOC and Aramark. Continue calling IDOC Commissioner Bruce Lemmon at (317) 232-5711 and Aramark Correctional Services at (800) 777-7090 (though we’ve heard that they have sometimes stopped picking up in response to the flood of calls they’ve received so far). (more…)

On Monday, January 13th, Indiana prisoners being detained in Westville Correctional Facility began to refuse the nutritionally deficient, unappetizing cold sack lunches they have been forced to endure over the past several months and have issued a call for solidarity. A mass call-in, starting at 8am on Tuesday, is being planned to put pressure on IDOC officials and Aramark Correctional Services to reinstitute hot lunch trays.

According to “official” sources, the switch to sack lunches was a 90 day test program launched in response to a prisoner’s request to increase recreation and shower time. Overlooking the absurd proposition that a prison would change its food policy based on a prisoner request for extended recreation time, the fact is that since the conversion to sack lunches, recreation and shower time have not increased, and the 90 day trial period has long since passed.

The truth is more likely to be found in the bottom line and Aramark’s business history. In 2005, Aramark Correctional Services (ACS) signed aquarter billion dollar, ten year contract with the Indiana Department of Corrections to provide meals for inmates. Since then, Indiana DOC has saved more than $11 million a year, spending approximately $1.19 per meal/per prisoner. In other states these savings have been achieved as a result of skimping on food portions and quality. In Florida, an audit of ACS found the company was cutting costs/increasing profits by cutting portions on meals. In Kentucky, similar skimping on portions coupled with a decrease in the quality of food led to food riots in 2009. During the investigation that followed, Aramark refused to provide Kentucky auditors with access to its records, making a claim to their proprietary rights and confidentiality. (more…)

My good friend Oso Blanco (Byron Chubbuck) called me tonight very upset and asking for help. He said a staff person was checking their cell for “extra clothing” and grabbed a sheet of paper laying (out in the open!) of a simple drawing Oso did. He has been trying to establish where various Cherokee memorials/battlefields/landmarks/burial mounds are in relation to his current location – Lee USP. The drawing was only of a prison and a fenced in burial mound he thought he saw upon his arrival. That’s it!

Oso and his cellie, Raymond Locklear, were thrown into the hole for possessing an “escape tool”. Oso says its an insane charge but this is why to take it serious as he feels its a setup. He is worried they will place him back in a Special Management Unit (SMU) – this is what he was just in for years and most of it is solitary confinement and phone/commissary restrictions and so forth.

Please please take a second to call or email as soon as you get this on behalf of Byron Chubbuck #07909051:
Phone: 276-546-0150 Fax: 276-546-9115
E-mail address2: LEE/EXECASSISTANT@BOP.GOV

Oso specifically is worried that ANY DAY now a DHO (disciplinary judge) will come and rule unfavorably on this bullshit “escape tool” charge. He is worried he will be back in isolation SMU for another unforseeable length of time. He sounded very upset by this possibility and asked EVERYONE to please call in on his behalf (and Raymond Locklear) to get this ridiculous charge dismissed or removed altogether. (more…)

Robert Seth Hayes is currently 65 years old. He was first diagnosed with Type II diabetes in the year 2000. In the 13 years since then, DOCCS has been completely unable to control his blood sugar levels. At the time he was diagnosed, Mr. Hayes was at Clinton. He was transferred to Wende in 2003 and then to Sullivan in 2010.

Throughout this time, Mr. Hayes’ sugar levels have either soared to the 300 to 400 levels or been extremely low, in the 50 to 70 levels, both life-threatening. Mr. Hayes also has Hepatitis C, for which he is currently not receiving any treatment. (more…)